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The conditions of production: A note

Mario Pianta
Published online: 25 Feb 2009.

To cite this article: Mario Pianta (1989) The conditions of production: A note , Capitalism Nature Socialism, 1:3, 129-134, DOI: 10.1080/10455758909358388
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The Conditions of Production: A Note*

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By Mario Pianta

One point of departure of ecological Marxism can be found in the

contradiction between capitalist production relations and forces, on one
hand, and the conditions of capitalist production, on the other.1 In recent
years, the concept of "conditions of production" has often been used in
urban and regional research in order to relate the emergence of specific
spatial and social structures to the process of production. The provision
of adequate "general conditions of production" has been seen as a
specific function of the state.2 The concept of "production conditions"
has helped to explain a variety of state actions and policies, from the
construction of infrastructure and services to planning, which were
critical in the postwar growth, crisis, and restructuring of capitalist
production in Europe and the United States.
In this research, the conditions of production have generally
referred to the built environment, and to the social contradictions and
public policies to be found at that level. The eco-Marxist analysis
extends the concept to the natural environment, and to the social
contradictions and policies pertaining to capital's relation with nature.
* Adapted from: Mario Pianta, State Investments and Urban Restructuring: The Case of
Turin, 1960-1978, Ph.D Dissertation, London School of Economics and Political Science,
1983.
1

James O'Connor, "Capitalism, Nature, Socialism: A Theoretical Introduction," CNS,

1, Fall, 1988, p. 16. In an earlier work, O'Connor used the terminology "social capital"
and "social expenses" (The Fiscal Crisis of the State, New York: St. Martin's Press,
1973).
2

M. Folin, "The Production of the General Conditions of Social Reproduction and the
Role of the State," in Harloe and Lebas, eds., City, Class, and Capital (London: Arnold,
1981), p.51.

CMS, 3, 1989
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Despite the obvious differences between human-built space and natural

eco-systems, some similarities can be found in the way that capitalist
production requires and uses such conditions, and in the recurrent
conflicts about who should control them, how they should be controlled,
and for what end. A brief review of the research on the human-built
conditions of production may therefore be useful.

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The original Marxian concept of "general conditions" emphasized

their relation to the process of production: "the revolution in the mode of
production of industry and agriculture made necessary a revolution in the
general conditions of the social process of production i.e., in the means
of communication and transport"3 Most of this infrastructure was
provided by the state. What is important about the general conditions,
however, is their relation to capitalist production. The intervention of the
state makes a difference in the form in which those general conditions
are provided, as in this case they are unprofitable activities performed
outside the circuits of capital.
Public infrastructure is the first and most immediate example of
"general conditions." Folin, studying their role in the process of
production, criticized the traditional categories of "public works" and
"social overhead capital" developed within the framework of
neoclassical economics. He noted that "if we are to understand the
actual or possible role of infrastructure investment in relation to the
development and articulation of economic policy, then we have to start
from a critique of the categories of public work and social fixed capital,"
as they "cannot adequately grasp the impact which the transformation of
space has on economic development."4
By contrast, using the concept of "general conditions," it becomes
possible to analyze the role of the provision of infrastructure both in
relation to the general economic functions of the state and the process of
capitalist production. This link has been stressed by Hirsch, who
analyzed the dynamics of the general conditions and noted "the change in
the material peculiarities of production resulting from the technological
transformations of the labour process which leads historically to ... a
3

Karl Marx, Capital, I (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976), p.505.

M. Folin, "Public Enterprise, Public Works, Social Fixed Capital, International

Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 3,3, 1979, p.136.

CNS, 3, 1989
-130-

tendency for the general conditions of production established by the state

to expand."5 The result of this process has been "the increasing
importance - increasing with the socialization of production - of the
general material conditions of the process of production and reproduction
which have to be produced or restored socially,"6 in particular through
the provision of infrastructure by the state.
The concept of "general conditions" has also been variously
extended to include new activities of growing importance in modem
capitalist production. Hirsch distinguished "between 'general material9
conditions of production in the narrower sense, e.g., roads, canals; and
'general* conditions of production which for capital are incorporated in
labour power (e.g., health service), education, and also research in the
broadest sense."7

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In a similar way, Mandel distinguished between "the generaltechnical preconditions of the actual process of production (means of
transport and communication, the postal service, and so on); the
provision of the general-social preconditions of this same process of
production; ... and the continuous reproduction of those forms of
intellectual labour which are indispensable for economic production."8
The concept of "general conditions" has been extended by Lojkine
to those "factors so important to constitute other necessary conditions for
the overall reproduction of developed capitalist formations. They are, on
the one hand, the means of collective consumption, which join the means
of material circulation (i.e., the means of communication and transport)
and, on the other hand, the spatial concentration of the means of
production and reproduction of capitalist social formations."9 In this
view, the general conditions consist of, first, conditions of production, as
in the case of material infrastructure, directly involved in the process of
5

J. Hirsch, "The State Apparatus and Social Reproduction," in Holloway and

Picciotto, eds., State and Capital (London: Arnold, 1978), p.92.
6

Ibid., p.93.

Ibid., p. 190.

E. Mandel, 1978, p.476.

J. Lojkine, Le Marxisme, l'etat et la question urbaine (Paris: Presses Universitaires

de France), p. 126.

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production (e.g. roads, railways, etc.). Their provision by the state

reduces the necessary private investment (and the organic composition of
capital), and thus allows the rate of profit to increase. Second, the
general conditions are conditions for the reproduction of labour power,
which indirectly effects the process of production. State intervention
here is the result of the increasing socialization of the activities of
reproduction, e.g., longer years of education and training, better health
care, etc. Third, the provision of the general conditions largely
characterizes the city, which is increasingly shaped by state intervention
with the provision of material infrastructure and activities of
reproduction of labour power (the same activities obviously are not
limited to the city). Also, the specific form of agglomeration of the city
in capitalist societies is in itself an important element of the "general
conditions" not for all kinds of production, but certainly for tertiary and
"command** activities. As Lojkine noted, the "capitalist city" is
characterized by an "increasing concentration of means of collective
consumption" and by a "specific way of agglomeration of the whole of
the means of reproduction (of capital and labour power) which is to
become itself an increasingly determinant condition for economic
development"10 Folin explained that the concept of "general conditions"
refers "to infrastructural activity and the whole phenomenon of the city
in order to throw more light on the specific role of the built environment
within the process of production and reproduction of social capital."11
This perspective has been further developed by Lojkine. Starting from
the hypothesis that "the forms of urbanization are first of all the forms of
the social (and territorial) division of labour,"12 he stressed that "the city
is in no way an autonomous phenomenon, with laws of development
different from the laws of capitalist accumulation; it is not possible to
disassociate the city from the tendency of capital to increase labour
productivity by socializing the general conditions of production, of
which urbanization is an essential component."13
The role of conditions of production in capitalism means neither
that they are always readily provided, nor that they always help
10

Ibid., p. 126.

11

Folkin, 1979, op.cit., p.345.

12

Lojkine, op.cit., p. 124.

13

Ibid., p. 141.

432-

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accumulation; the specific form they take is rather the outcome of

particular social relations and conflicts. Hirsch, after stating that the
provision of the general conditions of production is a basic function of
the slate, stressed that from this "one cannot determine in the same way
what concretely must become the object of state 'infrastructural
provision1 at any historical point in time, nor whether the state apparatus
will supply the need."14 From this, Hirsch concluded that "trying to
define infrastructure cnumeratively and conclusively" is senseless, as the
general conditions provided by the state depend on the historicallyspecific development of economic and social processes and on the
balance of class forces.15
The possibility is thus open for the development of contradictions
between state and capital, between the political and the economic
spheres, and between state policies and the specific requirements of
economic development. As Hirsch put it, "since these 'general social
conditions of production' do not automatically adapt to capital
accumulation, the crisis breaks out into the open when the process of
accumulation comes up against their limits. In the crisis, these limits are
in fact redefined and the general conditions of production arc
reorganized."16 In this way, the development of state policy s the joint
result of the process of capital accumulation together with the specific
conjuncture of social and political forces. The development of the
resulting "general conditions of production" is thus related to the
development of social relations and their contradictions.
From this brief survey, it is clear that many of the issues raised by
research on the built environment as a condition of production are
equally relevant to the extension of the concept to nature.17 In particular,
conflicts about the definition, development, and control of the conditions
of production are common to human-built and natural space, and the key
role of regulation is played by the state in both cases. Similar, if not
exactly the same, are the policy tools used in the state regulation of both
environments: planning; the setting of standards (for public health and
14

Hirsch, op.cit., p.91.

15

Ibid., p.92.

16

Ibid., p.74.

17

O'Connor, op.cit., p.23ff.

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toxic emissions); public investment (from sewage to toxic waste

cleanup). In fact, looking at the problem from the perspective of spatial
policy, the attention and intervention in nature is a more or less direct
extension and update of the previous forms of state provision of
"conditions of productions," with the same aims (e.g., a healthy and
productive labor force), and with the same need for people to struggle to
obtain and enforce better conditions.

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What is often radically different is the scale of the issue. While

most of the conditions of production provided by the built environment
are local, many of the conditions of nature are global (the ozone, global
warming, etc.) or international (acid rain, pollution in the Rhine, etc.),
raising new problems since there is no "state" which can act as regulator
of such forms of environmental degradation.18
Both human-built and natural conditions of production are also
similar in relation to the issue of the political pressure by the right to
limit the role of the state and develop market (or pseudo-market) forms
of regulation. After the privatization of services in Britain and in the
USA, and the private construction of toll roads, from the Anglo-French
tunnel in Europe to various projects in the USA,19 there is now a
booming debate on "market ecology," with proposals by the US and
British governments to leave the protection of the environment to market
mechanisms, from the buying and selling of pollution rights to the setting
of prices for environmental goods.20 With industry and governments
behaving in this way, there can be no doubt that nature has been
incorporated in the present conditions of global capitalist production, and
that struggles about environmental quality and preservation are now as
crucial from a political point of view as urban struggles about local
conditions of production were in the 1970s.

18

M. Pianta and M. Renner, "The State System and the Consequences for
Environmental Degradation," IPRA Newsletter, 27, 1, 1989.
19

"Fifteen Miles - that'll be $1.50," Business Week, August 14, 1989, p.27.

20

"How Much is a Sea Otter Worth?" Business Week, August 21, 1989, p.30;
"Growth Can Be Green," The Economist, August 26, 1989, p. 12.

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